mathematically simple

And, as far as I can see, neutral. Doesn’t put you in a bubble like other social networks do, because it’s not trying to milk you for engagement.

the user feed is just made up of posts from people you follow in chrono order.

You can also follow hashtags, block hashtags, and block words/phrases.

The Local Timeline shows posts from everyone on your instance. The Federated Timeline is a fire hose. It shows all posts in chronological order (as received by your instance).